Bosnia-politics-weapons

Bosnia-politics-weapons
Bosnian Serbs' weapons purchase upsets Muslims
Sarajevo, Feb 13, 2018 (AFP) - Several Bosnian Muslim officials voiced
concern Tuesday over the purchase of 2,500 new rifles by Bosnian Serb police,
seeing it as an embryo of the entity's armed formation.
Since its 1990s inter-ethnic war, Bosnia consists of two semi-independent
halves -- the Bosnian Serbs' Republika Srpska (RS) and the Muslim-Croat
Federation.
The two entities share weak central institutions while each has its own
government, parliament and police. However, the country has a joint army.
Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, regularly accused of separatist
aspirations, on Monday confirmed the purchase of the rifles.
"We are witnessing that Republika Srpska president is working on
establishing some sort of armed formations," RS vice-president Ramiz Salkic,
of the main Muslim SDA party, told Vijesti.ba news portal on Tuesday.
According to Bosnia's constitution, each entity must have two
vice-presidents from other ethnic groups than the president, meaning that RS
has a Muslim and a Croat vice-president.
"Are they (rifles) for special police? If that's the case it is too much,
enormous," the Muslim-Croat entity's Interior Minister Aljosa Campara, also of
the SDA, told reporters.
The weapons, ordered from a Serbia's arms factory last October, should
arrive in RS in March.
Dodik told reporters that the purchase was "nothing more than the
modernisation of police and strengthening of its role".
A month ago Bosnian intelligence authorities said they were investigating
media reports that a pro-Russian paramilitary unit has been set up with
Dodik's approval.
Dodik firmly rejected the claims.
On Tuesday he said that the questioning of the arms purchase was aimed at
"shifting the attention from fundamental security problems" which are,
according to him, "presence of jihadist fighters in Bosnia".
Once a darling of the west, the Bosnian Serb strongman now shows more
sympathies for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Bosnia's 1992-1995 war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed some
100,000 lives.
A half of the country's 3.5 million citizens are Muslims, a third are
Serbs, while Croats make some 15 percent of the population.
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